Lullatone
were born at night, when a sleep-deprived
Shawn James Seymour
started making a series of gentle, delicate pop tunes that wouldn't disturb the slumber of his girlfriend,
Yoshimi Tomida
. You could say the whole idea of
was, as the band's name implies, simply to make lullabies.
Seymour
and
Tomida
described
's music as "pajama pop," and their 2003 debut,
Computer Recital
, made liberal use of soporific instrumentation: pillows (as drums), hushing noises, and heartbeats.
's greatest achievement, however, was not that it made a bunch of hip, quirky tunes that would put a baby to sleep (which it did, beautifully); its greatest strength was in its ability to bend sine tones into warm, human shapes -- something that, to say the least, was pretty cool. Since then,
have expanded
's sound beyond its ambient roots -- every album since
Little Songs About Raindrops
has included
's vocals, and
's original meandering, minimalist sound has become more hook-heavy, organic, and pop-oriented. And while this spirit of adventure has led to some of
's best work (
Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
is a prime example), it does leave one feeling a bit nostalgic for the minimalist sheen of
's earliest work.
Given all this,
fans who have been with the band from the beginning will find a lot to like on the duo's sixth release, 2009's
Songs That Spin in Circles
. Written and recorded while
(who at that point was married to
) was pregnant with her first child, this album, much like
, was made for the pajama set. It's a deeply sleepy album, not simply because of its instrumentation (twinkly glockenspiels, gentle sine tones, feathery percussion, etc.) but because of the album's "circularity" -- which is just to say that each track has a kind of wandering-around-in-a-circle quality. This approach has its pitfalls, and a couple tracks fall into forgettable, sparkly doldrums (
"A Mobile Over Your Head"
is a prime example of this). For the most part, though, the tunes are subtly complicated, harking back to the best moments of
.
"An Old Record on Its Player"
"A Carousel on a Slide Projector"
are lush with weird, distorted music box effects; these tracks are blissed out on swaths of distortion, everything furred with digital sweetness, like balls of cookie dough rolled in sugar. And the hauntingly familiar
"A Merry Go Round in the Park"
(which almost sounds like a reconfiguration of
"Afternoon Nap [For Pets]"
) recalls some of
's best early work -- all pinprick-sharp bits of synthesized noise, smoothed out and warmed by soft heartbeats. There are other moments where
Songs
gives a heavy nod to
's first two albums, but it would be wrong to say that this album is simply a rehashing of
's early work. Better to say that the album feels like another piece to the puzzle, fitting in nicely right between
. ~ Margaret Reges